Criminally goal-shy Southampton draw a blank at Aston Villa

Under normal circumstances I would say ‘the less said about that game the better’, but being a blogger means I have little choice but to put myself through the casting my mind over Southampton’s abomination at Villa Park.

First the disdain fuelled by my wasted afternoon is aimed at the hosts. What has happened to Aston Villa? Once a proud football club, challenging the top clubs and sitting rightly amongst the countries’ elite. Now? A team that will happily concede 68 per cent possession to their opponents at home on the off chance that they will grab one on the break. Embarrassing.

This is the Premier League and you are playing at home. Up your game. Fine, you took a point of us today, but it was more luck than judgement. If my team setup like that at home I would be furious.

But let’s not make this sound like the problem today was Villa’s anti-football, it wasn’t. Saints still should have won, but as was the case last week against Cardiff, they couldn’t quite find the desire to do so.

Perhaps it is the potential World Cup inclusion hanging like a cloud over them, perhaps those players saw what happened to Jay Rodriguez and are holding back a little bit now? I hope that isn’t the case as I believe the Saints players to be more professional and it wouldn’t explain why Luke Shaw was superb.

It was Shaw and the returning Victor Wanyama who provided the plus points for Saints in what was yet another case of controlling the game but not punishing the opposition. This has been a great season for Saints but you have to wonder what might have been if they had been more clinical when dominating games.

Mauricio Pochettino get’s a lot of praise from the Saints fans, but he does have his faults and this is seemingly one of them. He needs to address this goal shyness in the summer, whether that be on the training pitch or with new personnel. We have relied on Rickie Lambert for a long time and he has done a brilliant job, but he needs support and the loss of Rodriguez has highlighted that.

If the game hadn’t been frustrating enough, the 156th ‘handball in the box’ penalty appeal for Saints being turned down this season was the icing on the cake.